Who Are You?
by stormthebirds37
Summary: Annabeth wakes up, and he's there. And then she wakes up again, and again, and again, and he's still always there. She's fine with the first part, honestly. Except every single time, he's so close - yet always unreachable.


**Disclaimer: I definitely do not own Percy Jackson! It's too good haha :)**

**Warnings: This is a new one for me, but there are no serious warnings...so...this section is kinda useless. **

**Summary: Annabeth wakes up, and he's there. And then she wakes up again, and again, and again, and he's still always there. She's fine with the first part, honestly. Except every single time, he's so close that she could reach him - but she never does. **

**Happy House of Hades day everyone :)**

****Sometimes I think it's just me.

Maybe I'm the only one that goes through this, and maybe there are others. I have evidence for both cases, but nothing solid, either.

It's just...there's always a set cast of characters, and then some the vary, but Thalia's always there, normally there's some kid named Nico, occasionally Luke shows up, and a few times I even got a goofy guy named Grover.

And _he's_ there, too.

I don't know his name, and nobody seems to know him, either.

But that's okay.

I don't need to know.

I wake up and I'm in one life. Say, maybe I'm an author. Or I could be a waitress, or maybe even a member of the royal family. Thalia always makes an appearance, normally as someone really close to me. Nico's normally mysterious, but he just kinda hangs around. Luke's the mean one - I try to stay away from him. And Grover's just the funny kid next door.

And _him_?

He could be walking down the street. He could be at the same restaurant I'm at. He could be anywhere. He could be everywhere.

The instant he notices me noticing him, everything changes and I'm in a different reality.

Occasionally I hear other voices, too, just in my head, saying weird things like "Annabeth?" and "Hello?" and even "Is she deaf?" I just forget about those. They make no sense, anyway.

I don't know why, but this is my life. This is what happens to me, and I think this'll always be what happens to me. I'm okay with it, really.

Maybe I'm just used to it.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

**Fantasy # 87**

This time I'm a mailman.

Never been one before, but I might as well go with it, so I drive the van down the street. Thalia's sitting next to me, drumming her fingers against the car dashboard to the tune of the radio. It's pouring rain out and I can hardly see, but I keep driving anyways.

Finally I manage to pull over, water flying out in all directions as the car tires slide into puddles. Thalia and I reluctantly get out, shielding the parcels with our bodies so the rain doesn't touch them.

"Enough mail today, or what?" she sighs, fumbling with the keys in her cold and frozen fingers, trying to get the mailbox open.

"You could say that again," I grumble as I struggle with the other door.

"Need help?"

We both look behind us and squint through the pouring rain, staring at the small figure that's slowly approaching. "Oh, hey Nico," Thalia finally says, relaxing, and turning back to the mailbox that she's finally opened. Nico walks over, taking the key from my hand and putting it in the slot for me.

"Thanks, man," I say in relief. My hands are really cold and the increasing wind isn't helping.

"What the hell are you doing here, Nico?" another voice calls.

"Could ask you the same question, Luke," Nico replies as Luke approaches from down the street.

"Why do you associate yourself with _mailmen_?" Luke spits, and I shrug, turning around. It's all because I rejected Luke once that he acts like this.

"Mailwoman, actually," Thalia shoots back, ever her sassy self. I just keep filing mail silently. I really don't want to talk to Luke right now.

Finally I'm done, and I slowly close the mailbox, locking it up the best I can. I flash a grateful smile at Nico, offering him a ride through the rain, but he politely declines. I know he likes to be alone in weather like this anyway.

Just as Thalia and I are getting back into the van, I see him.

Rain is making his brown hair stick to his forehead and his white tee-shirt and grey sweatpants cause him to shiver in the rain. He's completely alone but he doesn't seem to mind that. He's looking the other way, and I know I should stop staring, but I just find myself frozen. Thalia's saying something but then her words fall away, like they always do, and then the world falls with them, until it's just me standing in blackness with the boy standing across from me.

He still hasn't looked.

_Oh, please don't look..._

He sharply turns his head and I catch the glint of his sea-green eyes before I'm gone again.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

**Fantasy #124**

Today, it seems that I'm a news anchor.

My co-anchor, Thalia, is reading out the sports section, talking about how the local team beat their rivals in an exciting tone that I could never muster for something like sports.

"And now, here's Annabeth Chase, with the weather."

"Thank you, Thalia," I say, and flash her a genuine smile. "The current temperature is 17 degrees. Tomorrow will have a high of 20..." I keep going, smiling at the camera, even though I know it's showing a weather graph and not my face. I look over to the right and see the cameraman, Luke, gesturing rather impatiently to call a commerical break, so I stop the segment and say, "More after the break!"

Almost immediately Thalia and I are ambushed by makeup people touching up our features, others giving us new notes, and still others making sure the teleprompter is working. "Does it ever stop?" I hear Thalia sigh in boredom.

"That's a good question," I reply, and I mean it on quite a few levels.

And then there he is.

Brown hair, white shirt, grey pants.

Always the same, yet always different.

I don't know what I'm doing, but I can sense the world falling away and I stand up, yelling, "Who are you? What are you doing?"

And then he's turning.

And he _smiles_ at me before everything changes again.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

**Fantasy #197**

This time it's so, so different.

I don't have a role.

I don't know why but it's completely black.

And then voices are filling my head, men and woman saying things like, "She's so close!"

"Come on!"

"Why is she moving like that?"

"What's drawing her out?"

"What can we do?"

"It's been so many years..."

I try to ignore them, but I find that I can't; they're just there, but I get used to them soon.

And then Percy steps out of the shadows, and I know exactly who he is this time.

"You're finally waking up," he says happily. He's not looking at me, but I want him to - I really want to see his eyes.

"I know," I reply, though I'm not sure if I do. "Are you?"

"Can't quite say," he shrugs. "I had it worse than a lot of people, yeah? Thalia, Luke, Nico...they all lived. Both of us, though...well, who can say?"

"We're both alive," I correct him, because I think I know what he's trying to say. "I'm waking up, remember?"

"I think so," he amends himself. "I'm fairly sure that you are. Why wouldn't you be?"

He begins to fade and I just want him to turn, I just want to see his eyes...

"When will I see you again?" I cry out as I feel him drifting away. The world really is falling apart now.

He laughs, his light, airy laugh that I love so much. "I don't know. Soon, maybe."

I catch the light of his eyes and then he's gone.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

And then I'm here.

I bolt upright, right into the arms of some doctor standing over me. "Annabeth!" I hear several people calling, but their voices still feel so far away.

"Where is he?" is all I say after my breathing is finally under control.

I don't know how, but the doctor understands, and he gestures to the right. I slowly turn my head and there he is, connected to a million machines by a million different tubes, his eyes closed, his breath ragged.

He's in a coma.

"Percy..." I whisper, and it all comes flying back...

_"It's really raining," I whisper, staring out of the windows of the school bus. We're on a high school field trip, to see some museum, but it doesn't look like we're ever going to make it in this weather. _

_"I love it," Nico replies, staring contently out the window. _

_"Of course you do," Thalia laughs. Luke's staring at all of us smiling with a tight frown on his face; ever since I turned him down, he's hated us, but I really can't find myself caring. _

_"Okay, kids, we're hitting a rough spot," the bus driver calls back, and we all try to stare out the window to see what he's talking about but it's too foggy and - _

_BOOM._

_It sounds like an explosion as the truck rams right into the side of our bus, right into the side I'm sitting. My vision's swimming and something hits me really hard on the head. I feel myself go flying just before everything goes black..._

_And that's when I woke up as a waitress, in Fantasy #1..._

And now I'm awake and Percy's not.

"I'm so, so sorry," the doctor says and lies me back down.

I realize now.

In my Fantasies, Percy was alive.

Unreachable, but alive.

And now he's not, because this is reality, this is life, and life is so, so unfair.

Do you ever have moments where you wish you weren't okay? Maybe just so you have an excuse?

This is one of them.

Life is always one of them.


End file.
